The Diamond at the End of Time

 

A la carrera on the run again and the Federales

On my tail and I don’t mean the Federales but

True hounds of Hell but I WAS in Mexico.

“Much madness is divinest sense” and it was

Me that said that though Shakespeare would never admit it

Following me around all the fucking time with his little notebook

And the Parker pen I gave him I mean he deserved it

Even though he took what the Hellhounds were after yeah

He had mojo and so there I was outside a little cantina

In Night of the Iguana country Senor Carrera to the Mexicans

And waiting…for what… but when you are looking

For the Diamond at the End of Time it might not matter

That Hellhounds are on your trail and you are drunk again.

Rock Drill.  It does not cohere. On the third lunation.

 

 

They keep watch on the hilltops.

The moon was big and yellow and bleary so I was

Feeling fine and it was Midsummer and I was thinking

About Shakespeare take and take motherfucker

And the moon was big and you think I’m running again

The Black Zorro and then the moon winks at you

And you are someplace else and that’s how it happens

Back in time or somewhen or somewhere.  Man, I was

Just back from London 1590 or so I never checked

Exactly and it is so strange everyone you see there

On London bridge as you smell the stench everyone is dead

And you can’t get that experience except by going

To a Republican convention but the stench is from the river.

 

I never thought Death had undone so many.

Another fine line of mine stolen but here I was

A black man in a white hat with a white feather and a silver suit

But they never gave me a glance onliest thing wrong

Was my bootheels were too low.  They knew how to dress then

And there it was The Globe Theatre.  Show out.  Around Five O’Clock

In the Afternoon as it always is at times like these

When you are flung backward in time and you know

The little guy with the devil beard the ink stained

Wretch squatting outside the theatre trying to write something

With a goddamn quill as the Producer screams at him and he

Acts like he’s someplace else his lips moving writing writing

Is the Bard himself.  Mr William Shakespeare blotting

The Hell out of his lines and there is a tide in the affairs of men.

 

You got to catch it at the sticking point.  It’s like this

And I explained it to Shakespeare after I helped him out

With what to do when the bad guys got the drop

On the hero.  You gotta have a distraction I told him

Christ don’t you know that and the bad guys look away

And the hero grabs the sword and it’s best if you have

A chandelier to swing from as he cries “Sa-thump whoreson

Hound taste cold steel!” and it’s in his plays someplace

So I went right up to him and took his hat.

He jumped up.  Shakespeare my man I said.  Give me back

My hat and I am not your man he said and then when he looked

At me cried Amoor and I gave him back his hat and smiled

And said Yeah Love gets you into trouble I know

You got Dark Lady problems.  But I ain’t here for that!

 

Then I took out my Parker pen and said  This is for you

Yeah it’s a pen try it and he did.  Who are you he said

A free black man from the seacoast of Bohemia I told

Him and he didn’t blink geography not being his strong suit

We gotta talk let’s go man and he just nodded.  We’ll go to the Mermaid

You interest me strangely and I could tell it had happened to him

Before the deer stealing son of a bitch because he had

A little smile as he picked up his quill.  You won’t be needing

That anymore I said.  You got a Parker pen there with endless ink

So don’t try that shit on me. What do you know about the Diamond?

What Diamond? he said.  That would be the Diamond at the End of Time.

Rock drill he said.  Is Immortal Diamond he said.

Brother I said.  He smiled.  I said Let’s be off to the Mermaid!

Fine Canary wine and the lascivious pleasings of a lute!

 

Milton stole that line. Shakespeare would have but he was sweating it

Like you do when you meet a free black man from the 20th century

Giving you a fine Parker pen with endless ink and some

Of your best lines.  We got drunk first of course.  Ben Jonson

Came in.  What a damn bore but we didn’t pay him no attention.

Ok I said you always callin’ people whoresons in your plays, Bill

Why don’t you just say motherfucker means the same thing

And he laughed and wrote it down and he admitted yes

He knew about the diamond and then the shadows seem to

Get more like real fucking scary shadows when he said

Alright I know Ezra Pound sent you he promised to come back!

I tried not to act scared. When was this? I asked and where?

Hsein he said Nova Vita.  The Commonwealth.

That far shore at the Third Lunation. What the fuck does that mean?

 

I asked as I melted into the air.

 

Fool-begged, foolish-compounded, folly-fallen footlings foison plenty

Of flickering Flibbertigibbets, fluxive flouting-stock flewed as

Flax-wenches, fleering and flap-mouthed flirt gills and flesh mongers

Full-gorged yet frustrate.   Pajocks and pantaloons you scream but

No one hears as you melt.  The crystal fretting (CF) is fracted.

A certain ontological void is created.  The exterior envelope is palpated to

Effect a hiatus in the lattice-work.  Dehiscence or fission de facto

Of course always implicated and a liminal porosity but anticipated invagination of light

Delayed   And the Da of Sa and the Non-place of Vorstellung

Temporarily inhibited by glissement all glockenspiel causing

The CF to groin glutted by vacuum awaiting glissando.  You get pretty fucking tense

So no wonder all you want is a Margarita and then another

And then another as you find yourself of all the Gin joints in the world in a Mexican

 

Cantina where you have to take your tequila straight and

You know what you have what all hell wants which includes

Mr. Ezra Pound so you are outside of that cantina and it happens

Again.  We go all darkling.  You step out into darkness.

If I didn’t want to die I wouldn’t have lived and you know you are there

The Commonwealth.  The far shore of the third lunation so, of course

There are black riders.  There’s just about anything in the Commonwealth

All Stories  All sweet days.  This is where you grew up if you

Were a certain kind of Kid so I knew where I was Midsummer Night’s Dream

Woods Near Athens.  Musick.  Alone of us Ben Jonson said

Shakespeare would put an ass’s head in Fairyland.  And my black ass

Was there.  Hell as they say could be Ilion Rome or any other town and

Even the woods behind Athens where right then two goblins got me

Ofays with SS insignia dragging me to a Castle a bleak wind rising.

 

Ah, bitter chill it was.  Across the drawbridge.  Stone and cold moon. Gargoyles.

And then into a room a lofty chamber triple arched the window

Candlelight, torchlight and they threw me down before the throne. Snarl

Of silver trumpet.  They killed Keats! But no I see it is the Bard himself

Two goblin fuckers holding him and before me on the throne and stepping down

Mr. Ezra Pound himself.  Ezra, you're a scholar, what's the time of day?

I say since it’s important to confuse the motherfucker and maintain a high

And haughty style for that’s the way it’s written.  You ready to be put in a cage?

Where is it? he says  I want it and I will have it.  It does not cohere

Which last I attribute to him being confused that a proud black man

Would have the Mojo.  Which I did have which is why the hounds of Hell

Etcetera.  Now you have to keep one step ahead of these evildoers so I

Took it out.  You looking for this and I laughed to see him. Here’s the Mojo.

Here’s what you lookin for.  Fix your poetry right up.  Here it is.

 

Satchel pitching in Ponce de Leon Park against the Birmingham Black Barons

Threw the ball so motherfucking fast that it disappeared.  And here it is Pound

But you don’t know nothing about it.  Here’s the ball.  Here’s the Mojo you want

But you don’t know nothin about it, do you?  And Pound jumped back.

And the Nazi goblins jumped back.  Whoa!  Yes. Here it is and he couldn’t say nothin’

But you know it is what it is when you see it.  And Shakespeare was getting off of the floor as I told them all and threw the disappeared Satchel Paige ball up just a little

Smiling at them like the devil smiles looking Pound right in the eye thinking get

Up get up Shakespeare.  Hsien.  Rock Drill!  You reading Frobenius, Benton, Del Mar

Aggassiz, Fenelolla knowing nothin about Ruth, Cool Papa Bell, The Splendid Splinter

Or the little guy sweating each pitch against class D minor league semi-pros, thinking

St. Louis Stars, Detroit Wolves, Kansas City Monarchs, Homestead Grays, Pittsburgh Crawfords

 

Memphis Red Sox, Chicago American Giants, Kansas City Stars, Detroit Senators

Get up Shakespeare .  Grover Cleveland Alexander sick and dying at Beaubier's Hotel

Get up your deer stealing fuck .  All over all over.  You never even went to a Yankees Game and you want the mojo?  Here take it and I wound up and threw the ball at Pound

Ran at the goblins, faked, got their swords flipped one to the Swan of Avon sword glittering in the torchlight cried I was born to this motherfuckers and of course

The torches guttered up with a goblin flame a hot wind from Hell blew into the chamber

And who should leap out from behind the arras but more coldly grinning Nazi shitheels

Saw Shakespeare cut down two of them howling Angels and Ministers of Grace defend Us!  Ha Ha I laughed  We gotta do it ourselves and the disappeared ball of course back

In my pocket mojo working Shakespeare and I back to back grinning as darkness surrounds us and what should we do against it but leap on the chandelier swing to the

Tower winding stairs kicking Pound on the head rush like happy ghosts up the dark

Stairs making it to the great door and shutting it just in time. All Hell pounding.

 

Remember this when you write Macbeth I panted.  Knock Knock  Knock on the gate

A great effect no don’t try to write it down and we were on the ramparts Hell’s Agents

Pounding at the door.  That fuckers gonna break I warned him.  The clouds blowing across the moon darkness surrounds us and then I saw it the star the greeny star

Winking in the west low there right over the trees.  I pointed to it as the door began breaking  We can’t hold em off Shakespeare screamed.  I looked round the ramparts  Hey a great place for some Prince’s fathers ghost to walk o’ nights I told him just trying to calm him down .  Look at that star.  That greeny star.   We going there.  He was too scared.  Look up I shouted at him for the wind was blowing now and shadows comin’ down from the moon.  We’re gonna go there and my mojo will get us there.  What the fuck are you talking about you crazy black bastard? he screamed.  I grabbed him took him to the edge of the ramparts 300 feet up and they had broken through the door.

 

Jump I screamed Jump like Butch and Sundance!  Whooped! Grabbed the Bard and we jumped into the dark!

 

All the Federales say, they could of had him any day.

They only let him slip away, out of kindness I suppose.  I’m Pancho

I shouted and you my man are Lefty cause we floated away into that

Dark me waving at the goblins floating towards that greeny star

And I got the ball and threw it right up whoosh felt a little sick and

We were there I looked down the green diamond and of course

Remembering how I first walked into Connie Mack stadium with my Daddy

Seeing the diamond green and eternal always remember my Daddy said

We were at The Diamond at the End of Time! I knew right away.

We stood there in the stands. The Diamond at the End of Time shone below us. It was

The fifth inning of the 1932 World Series.  Number 3, Babe Ruth, was at bat. Charlie Root was pitching.  The Babe pointed to center field.  I shouted

That's the Babe and that's the Called Shot.  Watch!  And we watched as Root hurled the fastball that Ruth hit high high and out of here to forever!

 

The Called Shot -- the immortal moment of baseball.

 

The Diamond at the End of Time.

 

We were alone in the stands except for a hunched seated figure not far away in a tan raincoat I recognized him at once.  It was God. He was God!  That’s God I told the Bard.  Oh, shit the Bard said It’s true. God's a Yankee fan.  How the hell did he know about baseball?  The Babe headed for home and there was Lou Gehrig ready to shake his hand.  The Iron Horse!  Man this is great.  I said Cool Papa Bell did that kind of shit all the time.  You never hear about it though.  And Gehrig is at bat and hits another Home run!  The thunder after the lightning!  Then it happened all over again.  Again the Babe raised his hand indicating strike two and again he stood out of the batter's box and pointed a finger at center field and hit a tremendous smash 436 feet over the fence and Into a ticket booth at Waveland and Sheffield Avenues and again he rounded the field holding up four fingers now and the Iron Horse was up to bat and again smashed the ball into Eternity. And then it all happened again

 

What's s the matter with God I asked?

 

And I knew God is trapped watching beauty over and over and over.  

 

It was 1932.

 

Goddamn it! I shouted  He’s watching while the Nazis are taking over.

 

Again it happened.  God stood up and looked over at us.  He looked sad standing there surrounded by empty beer bottles. We went over.   Me and Shakespeare.  

 

He looked at me. Gimme the ball he said so I flipped it to him.  He flipped it back to Shakespeare standing there grinning with his little devil beard.

 

God gave me a box of crackerjacks.  Nice to have met you Dooley Shakespeare said.  Tossed the ball up caught it and disappeared I really didn’t say everything I said God said and later I remembered Yogi Berra had said that and the next thing I knew I was outside of Wrigley Field It was 1932.  Chicago.  God was not watching here.

 

Hitler and all that and me just standing.

 

It, of course, began to rain.

 

And I knew why I was the Loneliest Ranger.

Knew again why I was the Loneliest Ranger.

God gone.  The Nazis closing in.  And Shakespeare had my mojo.

 

Finis.

 

The Loneliest Ranger